really isn t expected to change very much. also, i do think that it s worth noting that the democrats clearly expect the president to take any defections and run with them, whether or not we knew in advance, as both of you guys pointed out, we did know that he was going to be a no on these articles. but the president is going to try to make hay and use it as a distraction, he does not want to be an poichimpeached president. and anything he can do to shift the focus from himself to people who disagree with this decision, he is going to try to do. that doesn t make the decision any easier for the democrats. they have the articles in front of them and a really difficult political situation at home. once more to make the point, jeff van drew was already a no. we do know from our reporting over the weekend, our reporting is that the senator from iowa
jeff drew. as we have this conversation this morning, manu, he is a democrat but he met with the president on sffriday, he s talking about switching parties and he s already announced he will vote no on both articles of impeachment. republicans are casting this as a show of courage by a democrat leaving his party because of this misguided impeachment. the facts really are he was probably about to lose the democratic prime and he s trying to find a way to personally survive. he s under water and he will have a difficult chance. a lot of this is personal political survival for jeff drew, who has been opposed to impeachment from the start and he was only one of two democrats to vote against moving forward with a formal impeachment proceedings when they had the procedural vote in the fall. so it was no surprise that he would take this position. but after he cast that vote, he got a significant amount of backlash from democrats in his district. he was in a difficult position. i m told tha
president hasn t paid any political hasn t paid any hasn t taken any political hits for this. the numbers have stayed the same generally on impeachment and generally on his approval. what he s talking about this being good for him politically is the fundraising has shot up from the base. volunteer efforts for his campaign, from his base, have shot up. and he will keep that house republican caucus, which is, frankly, the base, intact through this vote. that helps, the gin up of the republican base, you see in the polling, it s keeping the republicans discipline. so the house will vote to impeach and it will move on to the senate. if you listen to the president s tweets, the supporters in the house, they say call in the whistle-blower and hunter biden. but a key trump ally in the senate, lindsay graham, says no. this thing will come to the senate and it will die quickly and i will do everything i can to make it die quickly.